When is a PIONEER not a SUPERDRIVE?

[SyneWave]

I have a G4 Digital Audio (733mHZ) running Jaguar 10.2.3
I am adding an external (Firewire) DVD burner, in addition to the TDK Cyclone I have internally.
I want to use iDVD to burn a movie, which I created in iMovie.
As the G4 case does not support two drives I have chosen to use an external Firewire housing to carry a PIONEER DVR111D, which I have been assured is a SUPERDRIVE. I was also given Patchburn to help.
But when I try to instal iDVD 3, it wont work as it says I do not have a SUPERDRIVE installed.
Is there a way to make it work on this set up?
I bought the G4 secondhand, and there was no burner - just a CD ROM. I installed Jaguar as I purchased a larger HD rather than use the one that came with it. I was wondering if it self determined not to install the SUPERDRIVE part as there was only the TDK in it at the time?
I downloaded the update from Apple today, and it wont work, as it too complains that there is no SUPERDRIVE attached.
INTERESTINGLY: I called Pioneer yesterday, to enquire about the audio connection, because the plug on the Prolific was not handed. When speaking to the guy he got a little upset when I said it was a Superdrive and that I was going to put it into an external housing. He said ~ It wont work in a MAC, it is not a SUPERDRIVE and it wont work externally. Oh, and the audio plug can go in either way around.....! I thought this was a little strange as I went to Apples site and it talks about the DVR111D drive as a Superdrive......???
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QUESTION: Can I run this externally and is it a Superdrive?

HERE is the list from Devices and Volumes.

FireWire (SLOT-4)
GUID 50770500071002
Vendor ID 20599
Speed 400 Mb/sec
Unit SW Version 10483
Disc Burning Fully supported
Vendor Name Prolific PL3507 Combo Device
Product name (1394-ATPI rev1.0)
Product Identification DVD-RW DVR-111D
Vendor Identification PIONEER
Product Revision Level 1.19

I think it is set to Master.

It works fine - burns etc. reads etc, blah blah.
ALSO
TDK said the CYCLONE was "not best suited for a MAC". It's been there for years and has always worked perfectly with Bias Peak and Toast 6.

[fryke]

Can you try and exchange the drives, i.e. use the TDK externally and the Pioneer internally? Might be that iDVD expects the drive to be internal.

[sinclair_tm]

When is a PIONEER not a SUPERDRIVE? when it is not inclued a mac, and doesn't burn dvds. all 'superdrive' is, is a buzz word apple uses to denote that the drive burns dvds and cds. and its a buzz word that is catching in the general computer market by consumers. but drive makers and most pc makers don't call them that, they just call them dvd burners. in fact way back in the day, apple used 'superdrive' to denote a different kind of drive, the old floppy drive that could read both one and two sided, 400k, 800k, and 1.44mb 3.5 floppies (thats right, the mac classic came with a 'superdrive'!)

[DeltaMac]

iDVD version 3 will not recognize an external dvd burner. I think the first version that will is version 5, but only in a limited fashion.
You might be able to get this to work by exchanging your two drives, as fryke suggested, so that the Pioneer DVD burner is internal. iDVD 3 may still not work with that drive, as it's not an Apple-provided drive. Patchburn should do the trick to fool the system to accept the drive, but iDVD can be stubborn, even if the rest of your software is OK.
I would recommend (for an easier time in getting this all to work), upgrade to OS X 10.4 (Tiger), and also update to iLife 06.

[SyneWave]

Thank you all for your considered opinions.

I WILL :-

Exchange the drives: TDK >externally, Pioneer >internally.

However, because of other software/cash considerations, I want to delay upgrading to Tiger for a while yet.

I will report back after the exchange.

[SyneWave]

GOOD NEWS:
I have exchanged the Firewire Pioneer DVR drive with my internal TDK CDR and guess what? I now have a recognised SUPERDRIVE !
But ~ Hold on....
Although I can now install iDVD as it can now see a SUPERDRIVE, I am prevented doing so because of insufficient room on my Bootable (partition) OS X Drive. I have only 1.25gig where iDVD needs 2.1gig. It's a big mother of an app!
OK I have had a scout around to see what I can delete - but there's not a lot to delete.
I originally allowed a 5gig partition for OS X, and created 3 other partitions on my 80gig, one of which support OS 9.3 (I still have some apps on there which do not work on X).
In addition, I have since added another 40 gig drive, to hold all the video data.

So todays question is ~ Should I attempt to repartition or install an alternative sysOS on my video partition so that I can install iDVD. ?

I seem to be progressing like I dance ~ one step forward, one step back...

[DeltaMac]

Originally Posted by SyneWave

I originally allowed a 5gig partition for OS X, and created 3 other partitions on my 80gig, one of which support OS 9.3 (I still have some apps on there which do not work on X).
In addition, I have since added another 40 gig drive, to hold all the video data.

So todays question is ~ Should I attempt to repartition or install an alternative sysOS on my video partition so that I can install iDVD. ?

The simple answer to your question - Yes - even if you free up enough space to install iDVD, you still need free space the size of the disk to burn a DVD, which would be around 4.7GB. Your burner CAN burn dual-layer DVDs, which would need at least double that!
a 5GB partition for OS X has always been too small, especially if you want to do some actual work... Some users will offer suggestions to use other, larger partitions/drives to store all the data files, but I think iDVD needs to use free space on the boot volume only.
Best way to go forward - backup your files, etc, from the 80GB drive, and give an OS X install at least 20GB of partition space. OS 9 does not need its own partition. The Macs did not ship that way from Apple. You may want to partition for backup reasons, or just for organization, and that's OK, but multiple partitions are not really necessary.

[bobw]

You also need to keep at least 10-15% of free space on the OS X partition, or you could wind up with corrupt or lost data.